A reader refutes the idea that Mass Effect 3 needed a happy ending, and argues that The Walking Dead shows how it should have been handled.

The Walking Dead – a good ending doesn’t have to be a happy one

The biggest gaming story of 2012 (and now seemingly 2013) almost certainly was down to video game writing and video game endings, and the two most notable games were of course Mass Effect 3 and The Walking Dead.

Reader DMR said in his feature that there is an issue with a tragic ending as it it’s not what one expects from most heroic action games. Certainly if there were a sudden unhappy ending plot twist in an Uncharted game, where Nathan Drake dies or where the animals in Viva Piñata suddenly got rabies and slaughtered each other, I would certainly agree.

However, Mass Effect 3 and The Walking Dead both signposted they were not going to have the sunset happy ending. The fact of the matter is that neither of these games would of benefited from a happy ending.

But what separates Mass Effect 3 and The Walking Dead is an ending that ties in with the whole experience you’ve just had. The Walking Dead’s heart-breaking final puzzle is to me almost perfection.

Mass Effect 3 on the other hand had an ending that was just at complete odds with the rest of the story. The death of Shepherd that was building right up until the appearance of the ‘star child’ was fine but I don’t want to dwell too much on Mass Effect’s ending as this has been debated time and time again. However I can certainly see that some people would believe, due to the nature of the choice-based game, that a happy ending should have been a possibility even if it was not an inevitability.

But I don’t agree it was needed. When properly executed the hero sacrificing themselves to save the day is one of the classic stories and you will find it throughout literature. For me a near dead Shepard crawling to activate the catalyst and save the universe with her dying breath would have been a fitting end.

You can’t always shoehorn in a happy ending when you consider the narrative of the story that you’ve been presented. Doing so can destroy a project. The best example of this that I can think of is the film What Dreams May Come, a film that takes a classic Greek tragedy story and transforms it into a saccharine sweet Hollywood happy ending. The ending is so bad that is actually has a proper tragedy ending and then an extra three minutes of nonsensical ‘and they all lived happily ever after’. It seems it was added at the last minute with no artistic consideration at all.

Ultimately, when it comes to video games what I believe we really need is for games to have a solid artistic vision of the story it wishes to tell. But this takes bravery, if we look at Tomb Raider for example the story it wants to tell would have meant most of the enemies being animals like in the first Tomb Raider. But from both the publisher’s and the developer’s point of view this would have been a massive design risk. I’m afraid to say they probably made the right call for sales of the game even if it does undermine the artistic vision of the project.

As both gamers and game designers mature more people will want to make games that have a real voice telling a fully rounded story. Maybe then games like The Walking Dead and BioShock Infinite won’t be the exceptions.

But unfortunately the most likely scenario is games will continue, on the most part, to contain very simplistic and inconsequential storylines that most reviewers will just described as serviceable.

By reader Irve77 [gamertag/PSN ID)

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. As always, email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk.